Haven High GCSE rate was better than Giles Academy

IT IS unfortunate Ian Widdows (deputy head at The Giles Academy) sees fit to ‘big up’ the position of his school by making assertions about the position of Haven High based on performance.

It is never wise to denigrate other organisations in this way as it leads to an examination of background of the school making the assertions.

While the latest Government league tables do indicate that The Giles Academy has performed particularly well on one measure, that includes non-GCSE courses, it is also true to say that, on the same table and using the measure that includes only GCSE results (those which the Government seems to be using as the new ‘gold standard’), The Giles Academy scores 13 per cent of pupils achieving both maths and English at GCSE and Haven High more than doubles this at 28 per cent!

I wonder how this changes the position of the relative performance of schools.

Perhaps the moral is that ‘people in glass houses should not throw stones’!

As the chairman of the Interim Executive Board for Boston St Bede’s, I fully endorse the comments made in your article by Andy Breckon and would add it is important for the board to feel confident they are working with a head, Adrian Reed, who displays integrity and professionalism in dealing with the media.